For some reason I notice certain PC's seem to eat hard drives, I have a feeling it's not always the hdd that actually just ups and dies.
there is one computer at my work that keeps eating great 20gig Fujitsu drives... I have never seen a Fujitsu drive die... they are awesome drives for reliability..
I have also seen very little problems with maxtor! only problems come with IBM and WD.
(WD seems to be getting better though)
I love my Maxtors, they are quiet and fast and reliable.. I am not saying replace your mobo, but I think there is something else sometimes causing hdd's to die, I am not exactly sure what, but when a PC has a hdd that dies, from what i have seen likely it will happen again down the road.... Maxtor rocks, I couldn't bring myself to knock them, great quality and reliabilty for a good price... even if I was having problems with their drives I'd be wary of the fact the drives may not just be dying necessarily on their own...
I don't know if what I have seen is proof or not, but it has to make you wonder.........